Forum:Don't use the Wiki
What are some of the reasons the majority of SW1 players don't contribute (or even use) the Wiki? Are there some issues they have problems with? Not enough advertising on SW1? Plain laziness? Or something else? There's quite a lot of players, but barely any contributors, and I get the feeling a lot of people don't even know it exists. --Danik Kreldin 08:26, 6 February 2007 (UTC) I tell each and every one of my players about it and I even ask them to maintain pages pertinent to them. I think there is a lack of time perhaps, but I do try to promote it. Not sure why more people don't though. Nasa eagle 14:04, 6 February 2007 (UTC) I wouldn't say it is laziness. Some folks just are intimidated by the format. Also a lot of people view the Wiki as a secondary priority. Something to do/update if they have time. But I don't believe it is a huge issue.--ImperialFH 15:59, 6 February 2007 (UTC) Yeah, I think it's that players don't know the wiki format and don't want to learn how to use it. I think though that players in leadership positions should be prodded a lot more to be involved here. We wouldn't have so much demand on the key contributors here if more leadership types contributed. A good example of this actually working are Krieg, Kyrin, and Jal'Dana, all of whom make sure to modify the appropriate pages when a change is made to their divisions. -- SW1 Kyle 16:10, 6 February 2007 (UTC) Another possibility: that players subconsciously don't want to have this much information defined and "nailed down." It's easier to just plead ignorance if the character's background doesn't work, or if a conflict erupts over "who did what to whom" several years ago. It takes time to wade through a lot of background material, and players might prefer to just RP "in the moment." Before the Wiki, whenever I tried to do background research into past IC history, the answers were usually variations of "I don't know. Does it really matter?"--Lolkje 23:03, 6 February 2007 (UTC) There are multiple reasons that I don't post here alot. I don't know, nor like, the format. I honestly am just there to have fun as a story teller for the peeps on the mush, not necessarily write the story here. I also don't relish the fact that anyone, anyone, can adjust my character and her past if they disagree with it.. and change it to fit what ever spectrum they like. It's just not my preference.. not saying this place is bad, nor good ;D (Ten bucks, this gets edit'd because I suck at Wiki-ness ;P) --Bailey *That's not really true... no one can change your character history, details, etc. It's against the rules. The most any other user can do is make a slight modification (like fixing a typo, formatting error, or some similar error), or post something onto your Talk page to begin a discussion in regards to the article or something like that. But no changing your character and her past. --Danik Kreldin 05:54, 7 February 2007 (UTC) There're the reasons I'm not on here as often as some people think I should be. Free time is mostly a sparse commodity in my life these days. What little time I do have, I'd prefer to spend on the MUSH. Of course, the wiki is something I can get to during the day. The MUSH is not. I'm also exploring the idea of encouraging other people to contribute by backing off. The mindset that any one person is absolutely vital to a subject area of content goes against, if not the wiki's, then my intent. Everyone should be able to freely contribute to whatever articles they want. If there's specialized knowledge or a particular point-of-view that I think an article or discussion would benefit from, I'll speak up... but everyone should feel empowered to make content decisions, not just the select few. I think the reasons other people don't contribute as often as we might like are similar. A lot of people would prefer to spend their time RP'ing on the MUSH, instead of documenting things on the wiki. It's not laziness per se, just a different set of priorities. Also, I can see how people could feel less-than or otherwise intimidated about contributing. Hawke has single-handedly written 50,000 articles about Caspar and Caspar-related topics. How much room does that leave for average joe user to contribute something? Most of those articles are basically Hawke's, and nobody elses. There could be a feeling that writing about Caspar would be stepping on his turf. The same can be said about others with other areas and topics (like Danik and the Empire, me and the CSA). How do we fix it? I dunno really. Like I said, I'm trying the back-off approach. -- Xerxes 21:17, 19 February 2007 (UTC) *Yeah, uh... I can see how it might look that way from the outside. But that's not really the case with the CDU. We have other folks in the org who do edit from time to time, and I do encourage them to do so. And when Hawke does write something, he tends to point it out to the revelant parties, expecting us to chip in our own bits. Frankly, he just has a lot more ENERGY for this than the rest of us do, I think, and he has a greater mastery of the technical aspects of wiki-editing, so we're largely content to let him do most of it. I'm probably the second-most prolific editor in the CDU... and I still need to do my character pages. :P --Mahon 04:34, 20 February 2007 (UTC) Another thought. The wiki is currently pretty good as a resource. Not so good at being a community. People will flock to a community they can feel they're a part of, thus the population of people on the MUSH. The wiki is perceived as an optional supplement to, not a natural extension of that MUSH community. -- Xerxes 22:39, 19 February 2007 (UTC)